Jeanette Winterson: "Gap of Time."

     This was the first in the series of novels I have mentioned before in which modern authors re-write and modernize Shakespeare's plays. This one, by Jeanette Winterson, who is a terrific writer, was the first in the series, and she rewrites "The Winter's Tale" in a modern setting, with a wealthy hedge-fund manager believing his best friend is the father of his wife's child, his abduction of the child to a far-away place, and his rediscovery of her many many years later.

     From a Guardian review:
"The richness of her language, the swing and swoop of her sentences, smooths out the transitions and eases us over the joins. What’s more, despite her faithfulness to Shakespeare’s storyline, Winterson manages against the odds to keep us gripped. By providing her characters with rich backstories, she wins our sympathy and so injects a real sense of jeopardy into a familiar tale. It’s no mean feat."

I had my reservations: although generally enjoying the story and admiring the language, I found it a little tedious as I moved towards the end, and--yes--I did tend to skip in the last thirty pages or so...

But don't let me deter you giving it a shot--chacun a son gout...